


Sketches

by Rhiannon87



Category: Uncharted
Genre: Drawing, F/M, Journals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate doesn't think of himself as an artist. Drawing's just something he does, just part of the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketches

Nate's been drawing as long as he can remember, doodling in the corners of his papers or the margins of the prayer books. He gets scolded for it more often than not, and that's half the reason he keeps doing it. He's always valued the power of doing something out of spite.

When he's bored, sometimes, he'll test himself, drawing things from memory and then checking to see how close he was. He draws the map in the front of Francis Drake's biography over and over until he can almost do it with his eyes closed, scribbles _sic parvis magna_ in the margins. He draws ships and statues and people, sometimes. Mostly maps. He's good at it. And someday, he tells himself, he'll need them. He'll need to find his way around these places that he keeps sketching.

Then he runs away, and he draws in his notebook on buses or hidden in the back of trucks. He draws Sir Francis's relics in the museum, shows the sketches to Sully later. And it comes in handy, the drawings, when he's following Sully around on one adventure or another. He sketches the relics they find, sculptures in the temples they raid, and maps, always maps. Sully leaves him to it and doesn't ask what he's doing, most of the time. And when he does say something, it's only to tell him that the doodles can wait, they need to get out _now_.

About six months after Cartagena, they're in Peru and Sully's contact has just blown them off for a museum heist. Sully's pissed, pacing around the cheap hotel room and muttering to himself about how much damn money they just lost.

“We can still get in,” Nate says, notebook on his knees, pencil flying over the pages as he sketches.

Sully snorts. “Look, kid, without the maps and access codes, we don't stand a--” Nate wordlessly holds up his notebook. Sully falls silent and takes it, staring at the pages. “Well, I'll be go to hell,” he mutters. “You drew this? From memory?”

Nate shrugs, trying to play casual, even though inside he's beaming at the impressed note in Sully's voice. “I got a pretty good look at his desk,” he replies. 

“Damn, kid.” Sully hands the notebook back. “Well, then. You ready to rob a museum?”

He grins. “Always.”

The job goes south, because Sully's contact sells them out, and Nate ends up in prison. He breaks the nose and thumb of the first man who tries to touch him and thanks god that Sully taught him how to fight, not just shoot. Sully bails him out after two and a half days, and they don't go back to Peru for almost a decade.

After that job, though, Sully always carries a few extra pencils for him. Just in case.

Nate finds out, as he gets older, that it's not just Sully who finds his drawing impressive. It's an easy way to win over women-- a quick, flattering sketch on a napkin gets him quite a few phone numbers and invitations to hotel rooms over the years. But mostly, it's just part of the job. He has dozens of notebooks in his apartment, a disorganized history of his career. He buys a few sketchbooks, too, for the times when he just wants to draw for himself. It's the sort of mindless hobby that keeps him from going crazy with boredom on long flights or helps him relax on nights when he can't sleep.

He finds himself sketching in them a lot more after he meets Elena. He'll draw things because he thinks she'll like them, even though he knows he'll probably never show her (if only because he's better than using lines like “wanna see my sketchbook?”). He even tries to draw her, pages wasted on portraits that are never quite right. It's the first time he's really been unhappy with something he's drawn-- usually he's willing to settle for “close enough,” but that's when he's drawing statues or relics. He eventually gives up on trying to draw her from memory and snags a copy of her ID picture to staple in his latest journal.

Elena catches him drawing a portrait of Pema while they're in Tibet. Her praise means more than any of the compliments he's gotten from other women over the years, but that shouldn't be surprising. Elena's always been special, been more important. He shows off a little, puts a couple of his best drawings on display, and he can't help but smile at the admiring look on her face.

He takes to drawing for her after that, once they move in together, little sketches stuck to her laptop or tucked into a book. He's usually not around to see her find them, but she saves them all, stuffed into a folder she keeps on her desk. It's a way for him to say 'I love you,' because the words themselves don't come easily. Then he starts investigating Marlowe and the East Indies again, and everything else loses focus. And it's not until he's left and moved back in with Sully that he realizes he hadn't drawn anything for Elena in months.

Just another way he fucked things up.

A couple days after they leave Yemen, Nate wakes up first in their London hotel room. Elena's asleep beside him, her hair spread across the pillow and the sunlight from the window spilling over her face, and he's reaching for his new notebook and a pencil almost without thinking. He takes his time drawing, glancing from her to the page and back, hoping that he'll get it right this time.

He huffs out a breath at the thought. Real subtle, Nate, he thinks. A picture isn't going to fix everything that went wrong between them.

The noise is enough to wake Elena; she blinks at him, then smiles. “Hey,” she sighs, still half-asleep, and reaches up to rest her hand on his arm. “What're you doing?” 

He glances at the half-finished portrait, then shrugs and turns the notebook towards her. Elena blinks and sits up a little, peering at it, then she grins and leans up to kiss him. “You like it?” he asks when they part.

“Mm-hm.” She leans against his shoulder. “Don't stop on my account,” she says. “Unless you need me for reference or something.”

Nate glances at her. He's never really let anyone watch him draw before. Usually he's doing it too quickly, scribbling something down in the middle of a ruin. This is different.

Maybe that's the point.

“Nah, you’re fine,” he murmurs, and starts to draw again.


End file.
